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HomeMy WebLinkAbout569"Article from the Pickering News, Thursday, June 29, 1961. Frenchman's Bay the area here of which the first records make mention, at one time was a more - active harbor than many living here would believe. Our records reveal that in 1669 the French missionaries (Sulpicion) from Ganaraska (Port Hope) and Bay of Quinte started west and in that year arrived at a Seneca Indian Village (Iroquois) now Frenchman's Bay. They spent a year with the Senecas and moved on, but before leaving established what is said to be the ""first school in the Province of Ontario."" The Earl of Denonville, who had been on some expedition south of the border arrived at the Indian Village ""Gandatsetiagon"" and received a thoroughly Christian reception by Senecas seventeen years later. The harbor was one of the busiest along the lake until the Grand Trunk opened its railway in 1856, spelling ""finish"" for the bay as a shipping point. There may be a small few, but very few living today who can recall the Bay Road being lined up with horse - drawn sleighs, loaded with grain and lumber, waiting to be weighed, at Liverpool Corners before proceeding to the bay to un-load. Huge elevators and warehouses stood around the bay' edge which the writer can well remember. Coal - the coal for this area was brought in and stored in those warehouses in those days. Local teamsters would haul two ton of coal from the bay to a Pickering Village home and unload it into our cellars for fifty cents a load. (Coal $5.00 a ton). We believe four different companies operated dock facilities at the Bay at one time, but business eventually got into the hands of the one remaining company ""Pickering Harbor Company"" whose government charter may still be seen in a Bay St. Office, Toronto. A good story going along with this is that when Pickering Harbor Company got every thing into their own hands docking fees were ""Hoisted"" or ""Histed"", and this made it rough on the ship owner who could not afford to pay these, and so commenced to look around for some means of meeting these increased fees. They brought their ships in close to the beach and loaded from there, making it unnecessary to go into the harbor proper. The Pickering Harbor Co., to meet this ""bootlegging"" applied to the Federal Government for ""water rights"" or literal ownership of a considerable area out in the lake. We believe it was something like six hundred or one thousand yards out into the lake, and covered the area from lots 15 to 21 of the Township. This in itself is something rare—we understand there are only two or three such instances where ""water rights"" or ownership is or has been given private individuals. Generally speaking ""water's edge to high water mark is something of a No Man’s Land, on navigable waters”. But those “rights"" on the lake front here, we understand are still in force today, and may be applied when thought necessary. However these water rights stopped those small ship owners from getting near enough to the beach to be of use. "